How do I format a Microsoft JSON date?

I'm taking my first crack at Ajax with jQuery. I'm getting my data onto my page, but I'm having some trouble with the JSON data that is returned for Date data types. Basically, I'm getting a string back that looks like this:

/Date(1224043200000)/

From someone totally new to JSON - How do I format this to a short date format? Should this be handled somewhere in the jQuery code? I've tried the jQuery.UI.datepicker plugin using $.datepicker.formatDate() without any success.

FYI: Here's the solution I came up with using a combination of the answers here:

function getMismatch(id) {
  $.getJSON("Main.aspx?Callback=GetMismatch",
    { MismatchId: id },

    function (result) {
      $("#AuthMerchId").text(result.AuthorizationMerchantId);
      $("#SttlMerchId").text(result.SettlementMerchantId);
      $("#CreateDate").text(formatJSONDate(Date(result.AppendDts)));
      $("#ExpireDate").text(formatJSONDate(Date(result.ExpiresDts)));
      $("#LastUpdate").text(formatJSONDate(Date(result.LastUpdateDts)));
      $("#LastUpdatedBy").text(result.LastUpdateNt);
      $("#ProcessIn").text(result.ProcessIn);
    }
  );

  return false;
}

function formatJSONDate(jsonDate) {
  var newDate = dateFormat(jsonDate, "mm/dd/yyyy");
  return newDate;
}

This solution got my object from the callback method and displayed the dates on the page properly using the date format library.

Solution 1:

eval() is not necessary. This will work fine:

var date = new Date(parseInt(jsonDate.substr(6)));

The substr() function takes out the /Date( part, and the parseInt() function gets the integer and ignores the )/ at the end. The resulting number is passed into the Date constructor.

I have intentionally left out the radix (the 2nd argument to parseInt); see my comment below.

Also, I completely agree with Rory's comment: ISO-8601 dates are preferred over this old format - so this format generally shouldn't be used for new development.

For ISO-8601 formatted JSON dates, just pass the string into the Date constructor:

var date = new Date(jsonDate); //no ugly parsing needed; full timezone support

Solution 2:

You can use this to get a date from JSON:

var date = eval(jsonDate.replace(/\/Date\((\d+)\)\//gi, "new Date($1)"));

And then you can use a JavaScript Date Format script (1.2 KB when minified and gzipped) to display it as you want.

Solution 3:

For those using Newtonsoft Json.NET, read up on how to do it via Native JSON in IE8, Firefox 3.5 plus Json.NET.

Also the documentation on changing the format of dates written by Json.NET is useful: Serializing Dates with Json.NET

For those that are too lazy, here are the quick steps. As JSON has a loose DateTime implementation, you need to use the IsoDateTimeConverter(). Note that since Json.NET 4.5 the default date format is ISO so the code below isn't needed.

string jsonText = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(p, new IsoDateTimeConverter());

The JSON will come through as

"fieldName": "2009-04-12T20:44:55"

Finally, some JavaScript to convert the ISO date to a JavaScript date:

function isoDateReviver(value) {
  if (typeof value === 'string') {
    var a = /^(\d{4})-(\d{2})-(\d{2})T(\d{2}):(\d{2}):(\d{2}(?:\.\d*)?)(?:([\+-])(\d{2})\:(\d{2}))?Z?$/.exec(value);
      if (a) {
        var utcMilliseconds = Date.UTC(+a[1], +a[2] - 1, +a[3], +a[4], +a[5], +a[6]);
        return new Date(utcMilliseconds);
      }
  }
  return value;
}

I used it like this

$("<span />").text(isoDateReviver(item.fieldName).toLocaleString()).appendTo("#" + divName);